


Better

by fingalsanteater



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Awkward Sex, Body Worship, Come Eating, Established Relationship, Hand Jobs, Incest, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Canon, Rationalizing Questionable Decision Making
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 01:51:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11117379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fingalsanteater/pseuds/fingalsanteater
Summary: Stan doesn't remember how he got his "tattoo." Ford tells him a story.





	Better

**Author's Note:**

> Taking a few liberties with Stan's memory loss here.

Stan’s singing in the shower, something upbeat with a tune Ford doesn’t recognize. The air-conditioning is trying its hardest to combat the stifling early September heat, and Stan’s off-key singing is trying its hardest to combat Ford’s concentration. 

He’s stuck with writer’s block for the damn supply list for their sea journey, of all things. With the noise too easily drawing his focus away from his task, Ford idly doodles instead, scribbling out dark lines and circles that begin to take the rough, sketchy form of a boat. 

The preparations are taking longer than Ford would prefer, as it took them a few weeks just to find someone with a suitable sailing craft at a reasonable price. It was just their luck that Soos' cousin's wife's brother was selling a boat and was willing to cut them a "family only" deal - as long as they drove down to Arizona to haul it off. Soos had almost been more excited by the notion of Stan and Ford being considered family than Stan had been by the promise of a deal.  

Ford is not as moved by tenuous familial connections or good deals; he is just ready to, as Stanley would say, "get the show on the road." Or, more accurately, the boat on the water. He's impatient and anxious to put distance between himself and Gravity Falls, ready to slough off bad memories and write a new chapter in his life.

When the shower abruptly shuts off with an eardrum shattering screech, Ford about snaps his pen in half with his thumb. The bad plumbing in this ancient motel isn’t Stan’s fault, but Ford’s nerves are shot from eight hours in a car with his brother. Just three of those hours spent at the mercy of Stan’s driving were enough to put him right on the edge. He only hopes Stanley is better at the helm of a boat than he is at the steering wheel of a car.

Ford sets his journal aside and rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, sliding them over his eyelids until they meet to pinch the bridge of his nose. When he looks up again, the bathroom door opens and Stan steps out, rubbing a towel vigorously through his damp gray hair. It's mussed, sticking up in some places and plastered to his scalp in others, but he doesn’t bother smoothing it out before turning his body just enough to ensure his careless toss of the towel on the counter behind him lands. He takes just one step before he freezes, glancing back at the large mirror over the counter.  

"Whoa," says Stan, contorting his body to get a better look at his shoulder in the mirror. "I do not remember getting that." 

At the awed and confused note in Stan's voice, an ache rises up from Ford’s chest, a hand threatening to choke him with emotion – long soured guilt mixed with a fresh sense of desire for happier future. 

Stan treats his memory loss too flippantly sometimes, like losing his whole life means almost nothing. That ache in Ford’s chest started as a bruise at first, heart pressing on the tender spot in him every time it beat, every time his brother reminded Ford that he had failed him.

"Either I'll remember or I won't," Stan tells him when Ford had tried to subtly test him with questions, probing him about events in the last year in an effort to exercise Stan's synapses. Ford hadn't particularly been interested in the fact that Stan spent last Christmas with a tour group who came to take pictures with his Santasquach (Soos sweating in a dyed red and white ape suit with a Santa hat and beard), but it was a good way to make the idle car-ride conversation mean something. 

"And," Stan had said, when Ford tried to slip in another memory prompt disguised as friendly conversation, "you ain’t as slick as you think you are. Give it a rest with the Twenty Questions, will ya?"

Outside was just desert and the long expanse of road in front of them, heat mirages shimmering like water off the black asphalt. With Stan at the wheel, Ford had nowhere to look but inward, where the ache seemed to grow, an evening shadow stretching long across his ribs. 

He wants Stanley to be angry, to demand explanations of him, to press him for more details, more memories of their past and answer the question of what went wrong. He wants Stan to be happy, to accept Ford as he is now, accept that he’s changed, and appreciate the promise of their future together without their past sins weighing them down. Sometimes he doesn't know what he wants at all, save for his brother by his side. 

The muffled sound of the TV from the next room bleeds through the thin walls. Ford shifts away from the headboard, away from the sound which is like an interloper in this moment, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and setting his feet on the floor, bare toes digging into the worn carpet. His breath catches in his throat on inhale, and he has to remind himself to exhale, then inhale again, breath coming shallow and harsh.

Stan's back is still to the mirror, examining his supposed tattoo.

He's shirtless, wearing boxers so faded and threadbare that the blue and white stripes are mostly just variations on gray and the elastic band sags on his hips. It's nothing Ford hasn't seen before; it's just skin and hair over muscle and fat and bone. It’s his own twin brother’s body, as alike as it is different.

But, Ford still stares, entranced, as Stan stretches, arching his back and twisting his arm, trying to reach behind him and touch the symbols branded there. Stan winces when he discovers the angle is all wrong, then quickly changes tack, stretching his opposite arm across his chest to rub at his shoulder. 

Ford watches as Stan traces the uppermost portion of the figure burned into his skin, mapping it curiously with his thick fingers like Braille that will tell his story. 

"Did you see this thing?" Stan asks, turning his back to Ford. In the mirror, he can see the quizzical scrunch of Stan’s face. 

"Pretty weird looking. Think it was some prison initiation thing?” He chuckles. “What do you think, Ford? Is there some South American prison gang running around with tattoos like this?”

He fits the words in to the space where Ford's acknowledgment, his explanation, should go. But, Ford's tongue feels too thick, too heavy to move, weighted down by his guilt, by his desire to just let that part of his life go. He opens his mouth with no idea what he's going to say and a million different words vie to be the ones to slip out. 

_It's my fault._

_I didn't mean it._

_Forgive me._

Instead Ford says, "Let me see. Come here." 

Stan comes after only a moment’s hesitation, eyeing Ford curiously with a furrow of his brow before deciding to obey. Ford moves, shifting back on the bed to make room, one foot on the floor and one leg stretched out across the bed. Sitting on the bed in the vee of Ford's legs, Stan angles his body so Ford can easily see his shoulder. 

He's seen the brand before, but this is his first time really examining the extent of the scarring up close. The discolored skin that stretches across Stan's back is strangely beautiful, the geometry of the lines appealing to the eye. It's had thirty years to heal, to become part of Stan's body like it's always been there, like it could be an odd and complex birthmark like Dipper's if it obviously weren't the result of some trauma.

Ford's pulse thrums heavy in his ears; his mouth is dry and he swallows hard, his throat tight.

He reaches out compulsively, hand trembling slightly, to rub his knuckles over Stan’s shoulder blade, fingers tickling against the hair on his back before making contact with his skin, warm and soft and still a little damp from the shower. Stan sucks in a surprised breath at the unexpected brush of Ford’s hand, but doesn't move away.

"It must have been incredibly painful," says Ford, who knows it was because he remembers Stan's scream like it was yesterday, remembers the way he lay there afterward, broken and trying to catch his breath. 

"Eh, I guess so," Stan says, shrugging, laughing nervously, captivating Ford with way his shoulder moves in the socket – the protrusion of his shoulder blade, the slight flex of his bicep, the way the scarred skin reacts, symbols stretching out and scrunching up with the movement of his muscles under it. 

Ford lays his palm flat on the brand, eliciting a slow hiss of breath from Stan. He spreads his fingers apart slowly, then brings them back together even slower, relishing the differing sensations of hair, long healed scar tissue, and smooth skin as his fingers move across the expanse of Stan's shoulder. With his thumb, Ford traces the center line of the brand, scratching it slightly with his nail, and Stan shudders under his touch. 

"This is really the first time you noticed the... tattoo?" Ford asks. 

Stan snorts.

"I don't spend a lot of time flexing in the mirror, checking myself out or whatever you think I do in my spare time. This mug'll break a mirror if I stare too long." He rubs his chin with a hand, palm rasping against his stubble, and forces out a laugh that's mostly a grunt, a self-deprecating humorless sound.

He means it as a joke, obviously, but he also really means it. He only ever says things like this to Ford. It’s clear he cares that Ford is in comparatively better shape than him and is only able to express that insecurity in the form of a joke. And, like always, Ford is unsure of how to reassure his brother that it doesn't matter what he himself thinks he looks like. Ford's opinion is what matters most.     

Ford moves closer, one leg pressing against Stan's, physical affection his best attempt at a response. With his hand on Stan's back he can feel the way his breath is now coming shorter, quicker.  

"You would think you'd remember something so harrowing," Ford tells him, gently tracing different parts of the symbol in no particular order. 

"Yeah, you'd think," he says, emphasis firmly on the word  _you._  "Me? I'd just as soon forget whatever hell I went through to get it, which, ha ha, is probably why I don't remember." 

Stan knew about their fight, but Ford had glossed over the details and Stan had never asked for them. Ford is torn between the truth and... Stan's continued contentment with him. He doesn’t want things to be difficult now that everything is going so well. He wants things to be better. 

He's still idly tracing the brand, watching a droplet of water from Stan's wet hair roll down his neck, just missing Ford's finger as it runs parallel to Stan's spine. Ford catches it with his thumb, swiping the moisture against Stan's skin, rubbing it in until it completely disappears. Stan takes a deep, shuddery breath.

"Do you remember," says Ford, "when we were kids -"

Stan interrupts to say, "Probably not," with a snort. 

Pausing to push his glasses up his nose with a finger from the hand currently not touching Stan, Ford then continues. 

"I used to wander around with my nose in a book, tripping over everything because I was too enthralled with what was between the pages to watch my step. Ma used to worry I'd wander out in traffic one day." 

"You? With your face in a book? I wouldn't have expected that of you, Poindexter," Stan interrupts again, laughing, sarcastic lilt to his tone. 

Ford puts his other hand on Stan's hip, fingers skimming his skin and settling where his thumb can stroke along the smooth skin above the waistband of Stan's boxers, his thumb slipping under the cloth to brush against course pubic hair. Stan chokes on his laugh. 

They naturally shift their bodies, Stan settling deeper into the vee of Ford's legs. He continues his story.

"One day, I was just getting to the good part of some book. I don't even remember which one now, but I remember my heart was racing and I saw nothing but words in front of me. The front door of the shop had a raised threshold that was easy to trip over if you weren't paying attention. I wasn't, too engrossed in my book to see where my feet were going. I fell pretty hard, right out the door and on to the sidewalk." 

Stan winces in sympathy. "Geez," he says, "as much as I want to fill in the blanks, I'm not sure I want hear about the time you busted yourself open as a kid."

Ford trails the hand that has been caressing Stan's brand down his back, sliding it around his middle to pet the thick hair on his stomach. He leans his forehead against Stan's shoulder, breathing in the scent of clean skin and motel soap that smells faintly of baby powder. 

Titling his head, he kisses Stan's brand, opening his mouth against it and dragging his bottom lip over Stan's skin. He scrapes his teeth up to the juncture of neck and shoulder and bites down – gentle but not, applying just enough pressure to make Stan tense and groan under him.

Need, like fire in his veins, courses through Ford. This is still new to them, one way Ford is moving on his life and taking Stanley with him. Their ordeal during and after Weirdmageddon had awakened old desires in Ford, unearthing them from the grave he had thought them long buried in. He found that what he thought was dead was still alive, jangling its little bell and crying out for release from the dark confines of his mind, for relief from six feet of suffocating repression. 

Now, it’s so easy to slide his other hand in Stan's boxers, to squeeze his thigh, and elicit a loud, needy sound from him. Stan spreads his legs wider and cants his hips, angling for more from Ford who rubs his fingers against Stan's soft inner thigh, but doesn't go any further.

“Just listen,” Ford commands, whispering the words into Stan's ear, mouth against it. 

“Kind of –” Stan moans as Ford’s fingers continue to caress his thigh – “hard.”

Ford takes a steadying breath and continues. “Practically scrapped the skin off my knees," he says, voice pitched a little lower than before, "but I was fine for the most part. Ma got me cleaned up.”

“Iodine,” adds Stan breathlessly, “I remember she used a ton of iodine and it stung like hell.”

“Right,” says Ford, “then she’d slap a Band-Aid on and kiss it. She said the kiss helped make us better, make us heal faster. I never believed her, of course, but it was nice… something a mother would do.”

“I remember that day now!” Stan gasps, part from the memory recall and part from Ford's hand inching higher on his thigh. “You were a mess, all scuffed up and crying and sniffling even after Ma had fixed you up.”

Ford says, “Right. And you told me since I was so upset, you were going to give me extra kisses – well, you said, ‘So you’ll stop crying.’” 

Stan barks out a surprised laugh. “Damn, that’s – that’s something else. Some brother I was. I really said that?” 

Ford presses his lips to Stan’s shoulder again, just above the top of the brand. This time he traces the scarring with his tongue, sucking the skin into his mouth hard enough to mark Stan again.

Stan moans Ford’s name, and then “please.” He covers Ford’s hand on his stomach with his own, intertwining their fingers.

“You didn’t mean it like that. Well, maybe you did,” Ford says, mouth moving against Stan’s skin. “But, you were worried about me too. You kissed my knees six times each – you made me keep count on my fingers – and said ‘There, now you’re better.’”

Ford can feel the heat from Stan’s swollen cock against his hand, and he can't resist brushing his fingers against it, feeling it twitch against his palm as he slides his hand over the shaft, over the thatch of hair at the base of his cock, up to Stan’s soft belly. 

“God, Sixer,” Stan moans. “Quit teasing me. Just – just... please.”  

He relents, useless to resist giving him some measure of relief when Stan starts begging. Pulling the waistband of Stan’s boxers over his erection, he threads his fingers into Stan’s pubic hair and presses kisses to the top of his spine, his neck, and his brand again.

Stan sighs, shivers under Ford’s touch. “So,” he says, voice tight as he tries to maintain some semblance of composure, “tell me the rest of the story. Did – ah –" Ford's fingers brush the base of his cock – "Did I make you better?”

“Yes,” says Ford simply. “You did.” 

With that, Ford wraps his hand fully around Stan. He again kisses Stan's back, his shoulder, his neck, any part of him he can get his mouth on. 

Stan groans and thrusts his hips, fucking into Ford's hand. 

"Relax, Stanley," Ford says into his ear, "just let me."

"Right," says Stan sarcastically, "relax with you jerking me off and your dick poking me in the back promising more fun to come. You gotta be kidding."

Ford shifts and presses his aching cock to the bottom of Stan's spine.

"Fuck," Stan moans. "You going to make good on that promise?" 

"Are you asking me to fuck you, Stanley?" Ford asks, squeezing the root of Stan's cock again then sliding his hand down to thumb wetness away from the head, using it to ease the slide of his palm.

"As much as I love your hands..." Stan's words trail off into a hiss of pleasure when Ford quickens his pace from slow and haphazard to something firm and steadier and intended to make Stan come. 

"Or," Stan pants, cursing again, "you could just keep doing that." 

He wants to make Stan come undone under his hand, to have him quivering with pleasure in his arms. His mouth finds Stan’s shoulder again and sucks at his skin, filling Ford’s mouth with the taste of him. He nuzzles against him and watches his hand move over Stan’s swollen cock, listens to the hitch in his breath that signals he’s getting close to orgasm.  

Stan’s squeezes his hand, their fingers still clasped together over Stan’s stomach, and he groans Ford’s name, spilling wetly in Ford’s hand after a few more firm strokes. One hot pulse of come shoots through Ford’s fingers and hits the carpet, adding to the mix of stains already present.

Ford cups his hand around the head of Stan’s cock, until the last drops of come coat his palm and Stan is squirming, over-sensitive with Ford’s touch. Gripping Ford’s wrist, Stan tugs his slick hand off his dick with a relieved sigh and guides it to his mouth, licking a stripe across Ford’s wide palm, through his own pearlescent semen. 

Now Ford is the one who groans “Fuck,” squeezing his eyes shut as Stan sucks a finger into the wet heat of his mouth. 

And, it’s Ford who is the one coming undone. His cock twitches, pressing uncomfortably against the zipper of his pants, pressing tantalizingly against the meaty base of Stan’s spine, as he licks his own come from Ford’s fingers. Stan’s tongue traces the sharp crescent edge of Ford’s nails, the wrinkles of his knuckles, the lines of his palm – the head, the heart and the broken lifeline. The tip of his tongue spans the breaks in Ford’s lifeline, ignoring the gulfs of calloused skin that interrupt that crease in his palm like they don’t exist. 

Ford’s moaning against Stan’s shoulder, eyes squeezed shut, lost to pleasure. The black behind his eyelids is blooming with light as he squeezes them tighter and tries to stave off his imminent orgasm. It’s a futile endeavor, as Stan’s lips on the underside of his wrist, almost chaste in the gentle way he presses an open-mouthed kiss to the soft skin, contrasted with the rough scrape of his facial hair against Ford’s palm, sends Ford careening over the edge.

He comes in his pants like a damned teenager.

Whining in Stan's ear, he thrusts his clothed cock against Stan one last time as he comes, causing Stan to spit out a surprised curse. 

"Goddamn. Did – did you just come?" He asks, panting humidly against Ford's come and spit slick hand. 

Ford breathes in time with him, leaning his sweaty forehead against Stan's shoulder, rubbing his face against him, setting his glasses askew with the motion, stubble scratching Stan's skin. 

Stan presses one last kiss to Ford's palm and then extracts himself from Ford's grasp, pushing up from the bed with a groan.

"Goddamn," he says again. He turns around to face Ford, his own cock hanging half-hard and glistening with semen.

“Look at you.” Stan’s hand snakes down to cup Ford's spent dick through his damp pants. "You did come, didn't you?"

Ford groans, a deep rumble that reverberates behind his ribs, rubbing up against that dark shadow of emotion that stretches across his chest.

He wonders what Stan sees when he looks at him. A failure? An Icarus? A freak?

He wants to close his eyes to Stan’s scrutiny, to his own humiliation. He’s hot, sweating under his clothes, sweating so much it’s soaking into the fabric of his sweater; he can feel the moisture under his arms and on his back.

“Ford,” Stan says, an odd note of frustration in his voice. “Fuck, you’re so – so…” He doesn’t finish the sentence, deciding that leaning down gripping the hem of Ford’s sweater is more suitable than anything he has to say. He pulls up the hem of the sweater and Ford obediently lifts his arms so Stan can yank it over his head.

He lays a hand on the center of Ford’s chest and pushes. Ford lets himself fall backward, body carried by gravity and momentum until his back meets the lumpy mattress.

Stan looms over him, hands skimming down Ford’s damp body, thumbs slowly rubbing over his ribs like he’s counting them one-by-one. His fingers find the deep scar gouged in the flesh of Ford’s side, tracing its steep curvature over his side and across his chest with two fingers. He trails his hand down Ford’s torso, through the hair on Ford’s chest and belly, fingernails scratching lightly over soft skin and old scars. He finds the other apparent scar bisecting Ford’s navel, this one thankfully shallower, and traces it with his thumbnail like Ford had the center line of Stan’s brand, dipping his thumb briefly in the hollow of his navel as he follows it down – down past the edge of the scar and through the hair leading to his groin.

“Why won’t you ever let me fucking touch you?” Stan asks suddenly, angrily, like he’s not touching Ford right now, like Ford has been holding out on him.

He has been, he realizes. Ford does all the touching, falling into his decades old desire headlong while Stan just accepts what Ford gives him, what Ford wants. Ford rarely even takes off all his clothing, and though Stan has seen in him various stages of undress, he’s never allowed Stan the liberty of touching him he as he is now.

“Let you touch me? Isn’t that what you’re doing now, Stanley?” Ford asks, because he can’t help himself, because he feels too vulnerable under Stan’s gaze, under his thick and equally soft and calloused hands; his desire for Ford is evident in the dilation of his pupils which swallow the warm brown iris.

Stan doesn’t respond with words, but he does bite back a curse and yanks Ford by his belt, pulling his ass right to the edge of the bed.    

Ford’s not hard, cock gone soft already and not recovering any time soon, but Stan’s thick fingers fumble with his belt regardless. At the clink of the metal buckle, heat floods him like saliva in the mouths of Pavlov’s dogs. With surprisingly steady hands, Stan thumbs open the button of his pants and unzips his fly. Ford has no idea where this is going when both of them came just minutes ago, but he lifts his hips and allows Stan to strip him bare anyway.

Stan squeezes Ford’s thighs and tells him, “Scoot.”

“What?”

“Move,” Stan says, “because I ain’t going to wreck my knees to get my mouth on your cock.”

Ford flushes with arousal and shimmies up the bed until his head hits the pillow, thighs falling open in anticipation. Stan strips off his shorts and climbs in after him, back into the vee of Ford’s legs.

He starts at Ford’s ankle, nosing through the hair on Ford’s right calf all the way up to his knee where he presses a tender kiss. It takes Ford a second to recognize the echo of their childhood in that gesture, but it’s made obvious when he kisses Ford’s other knee.

A knot rises up in Ford’s throat and he swallows painfully against it. His chest aches.

Stan doesn’t kiss him five more times on each knee, just the once is enough to convey the sentiment. He glances at Ford and smiles weakly, then slides his mouth up, lips dragging against his sensitive inner thigh and up to the juncture of thigh and groin. He stops to suck on the tendon there, thrumming it with his tongue while Ford squirms at the sensation, moaning. Stan presses firm hands to his hips to keep him still.

“You going to get hard for me again, Sixer?” Stan asks, hot breath ghosting over Ford’s flaccid dick.

“I, ah –” Stan touches the tip of his tongue to Ford, who is still all sticky with his come. “I don’t know,” he answers truthfully.

Stan stuffs the head of Ford’s cock in his mouth, then the whole of it, which fits rather comfortably in its flaccid state. The wet heat of him perks Ford up, but it’s too soon and it doesn’t matter how crazy Stan is driving him, how Stan’s hands and mouth on him fill up his whole being with pleasure, his body can only do so much with the sensory input.

Pulling away after a few minutes of sucking and probing with his tongue, Stan looks up at Ford and says, “No dice, huh?” He sighs, laughing a little. “Me neither. What I wouldn’t give to be even ten years younger.” There’s a wistful quality to his tone.  

Ford pulls at Stan’s still damp hair, threading his fingers through to the scalp, then slipping them over Stan’s neck and shoulders, ushering Stan up his body until they are face to face.

“You angling for a kiss or something?” His lips are curled into a soft, crooked smile.

“Or something,” Ford says, and pulls Stan’s face towards his until their foreheads touch, until their noses press together, their hot, quick breaths puffing against each other’s cheeks.

Stan is the one who broaches the short distance between their mouths. The kiss is sweet with the tentative brush of Stan’s tongue against his bottom lip and filthy with the intermingling taste of their come on Stan’s tongue. Ford moans, opening his mouth to Stan.

He kisses Ford deeply, arousal rising in both of them until they are all but panting into each other’s mouths. He instinctively thrusts his hips against Stan’s, and the motion of it feels good, but his dick isn’t ready to cooperate with his desires. Stan eventually breaks the kiss and rolls off Ford and onto his back so that they are shoulder to shoulder.

“How are you feeling?” Stan asks, taking himself in hand and squeezing his equally flaccid cock. “Should we just give it up?”

Ford’s cock gives an interested twitch at the sight of Stan’s stroking himself, but nothing else.

“Not give it up,” he says, “just give it time.”

Changing position again, Stan rolls on his side and props himself up on an elbow so he can look down at Ford’s face. He kisses him again, slow and leisurely.

He pulls back and presses a soft kiss to Ford’s jaw and to the side of his mouth.

“I don’t have much more to give than time,” Stan says.

The words are a knife to Ford’s heart, cutting through him, piercing the most tender part of him, and reminding him of all that Stanley has given, even his time – thirty years of it spent trying to get Ford back. 

“Stanley, I –” he starts, voice choked, words caught in his throat behind that knot that’s been there since Stan climbed in between his legs and kissed his knees.

Stan puts his hand over Ford’s mouth. “Shh. Shut it, Sixer. I didn’t mean for you to get all sappy on me again.”

Ford breathes in harshly through his nose, lets the breath settle in his lungs before breathing it out again, slower, steadier. Stan kisses the back of his own hand over Ford’s mouth.

Stan’s inertia will move him – move them – forward; objects in motion, both of them, compelled forward, away from the unbalanced force of their past, and finding equilibrium with each other once again.

“Okay?” Stan asks.

Ford nods.

Removing his hand and brushing his fingers over Ford’s cheek, Stan kisses him once again.

Ford feels better.


End file.
